Should You Train to Failure?
December 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Gym fanatics are living with catchphrases such as, “No pain, no gain,” and “You must burn to grow.” Movies like Rocky Balboa, strengthen the concept that you can’t work hard enough and that more is better.
This training viewpoint accounts for the popular “boot camp” work-outs and fitness challenges such as the US Secret Service ten-minute One-Arm Kettlebell Snatch Test that push people to complete failure.
But is it effective?
Training to failure decreases muscle tension
Jeffery Willardson and colleagues from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, IL discovered that training to failure was no more useful for increasing muscle endurance than a program with a preset number of sets and reps.
Training to failure decreases muscle tension so much that the extra work is no longer useful. Failure training can also be unsafe and even life threatening because it can sabotage muscle tissue. This condition is referred to as rhabdomyolysis. It releases the muscle contents into the blood stream, which can actually cause kidney failure. The popularity of failure training has ignited a small epidemic of rhabdomyolysis in America.
Source: International Journal Sports Physiology Performance, 3: 279-293, 2008
